The Ventura County Sheriff's Department has reached a tentative settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit that contends deputies and local police violated the legal rights of dozens of inmates by keeping them in jail too long without filing criminal charges. Lawyers for the Sheriff's Department declined to say how much money 80 former inmates will receive in the settlement, which was reached last week and is expected to be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 10.

In the last few months, the corruption probe called Operation Big Spender gained a burst of momentum when two former Los Angeles County sheriff's narcotics officers pleaded guilty to money-skimming charges and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. With their help, the 3 1/2-year-old investigation widened--and the two officers joined several others in the government's small but expanding battery of informants.

Peering through the peephole of his room at the Valley Hilton Hotel, Sheriff's Sgt. Robert Sobel surveyed the empty corridor. The drug dealer who had occupied the penthouse suite across the hallway was nowhere in sight. Sobel nodded to his narcotics deputies, Dan Garner and Jim Bauder. The officers slipped outside, spotted a hotel maid and flashed their badges. She opened the penthouse door. A few minutes later, the deputies returned to Sobel's room with a gym bag.

In a startling setback for government prosecutors, six Los Angeles County narcotics officers were acquitted Wednesday on 13 counts of civil rights and theft charges spawned by a federal corruption investigation. But the jurors told a federal judge that they remained hopelessly deadlocked on the remaining 14 counts against five sheriff's deputies and a Los Angeles police detective who are accused of skimming drug money, beating drug dealers and planting cocaine on suspects. U.S.

Father Juan Romero still remembers how, as a young priest 30 years ago, he was forbidden to give a Spanish homily to his Latino immigrant parishioners in East Los Angeles--even if they spoke nothing else. "The idea was let them learn English," recalled Romero, now the priest at St. Clement Parish church in Santa Monica. "For some pastors, it was more important to teach English than to preach the gospel. We've come a long way, baby, since then."